The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; 7138; Small Car Safety

[Tease]

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: When the auto industry sells its small cars, it likes to talk "power, excitement, styling, fuel economy and status." But nothing is said about safety -- and, some say, with good reason.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. The Ford Motor Company today joined the other big automakers in reporting 1981 sales figures that made last year the worst in 20 years. At the same time, a new report on automobile safety gives Detroit some good news and some bad. The bad news is that the new small cars, which the industry is pushing, involve a considerable safety risk. The good news for Detroit is that American-made cars are generally safer than Japanese imports. These facts were released yesterday in a study produced by the insurance industry, which has long campaigned for safer cars. The starkest finding was that motorists in small cars, whatever the make, are twice as likely to be killed as those in larger cars. This report comes on the heels of a recent prediction by transportation officials that highway deaths will rise dramatically as more and more small cars come onto the roads. Tonight, why are small cars unsafe, and why are some safer than others? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the insurance industry says its new safety study is the first ever based on real-world results rather than crash tests and other simulated means. Their results come from the injury claim records filed on 139 different makes and models of cars from 1978 to 1980 with the nation's 10 largest auto insurance companies. And in its fine print the report gets very specific, actually ranking by name the 19 with the worst injury claim record and the 17 with the best. It'll take a minute or so, but it's worth going through both lists. First, the worst: all are subcompacts or smaller; most are two-door sedans. Beginning now with the worst and working upward: the Dodge Challenger, Fiat Brava, Toyota Corolla Tercel, Datsun 200-SX, Plymouth Sapporo, Plymouth Arrow, Dodge Omni, Honda Prelude, Mazda GLC, Honda Civic, Datsun 210, Plymouth Champ, Mazda RX7, Mercury Bobcat, Toyota Corolla, Ford Mustang and the Honda Civic station wagon. Now, to the other list, those with the best injury claim records, beginning with the best and working downward: Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon, Oldsmobile Toronado, Buick Estate wagon, Oldsmobile 98, Oldsmobile Cutlass wagon, Oldsmobile Omega, Chevrolet Caprice wagon, Pontiac Bonneville wagon, Oldsmobile Delta 88, Pontiac Catalina, Buick LeSabre, Mercury Marquis, Buick Century wagon, Chevrolet Malibu wagon, Mercury Zephyr wagon, Buick Century, Chevrolet Citation, Dodge Aspen and the Plymouth Volare wagon. All of those not wagons are four-door sedans, four of the 19 are small compacts, four are compacts, the rest are intermediate-sized. Robin?

MacNEIL: That survey was released jointly by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the United Services Automobile Association, the nation's ninth largest auto insurer. It has more than a million policyholders who are active or retired military officers or their dependents. The chairman is Robert McDermott, a retired Air Force brigadier general. General, how do you explain this poor safety performance for smaller cars?

Gen. ROBERT McDERMOTT: Well, Robin, there has been a trade-off to get fuel economy in the structural strength of automobiles. We've made them lighter in order to get needed fuel economy, and so we've made them weaker. So, in a car-to-car crash, for example, a full-sized American car versus a small American car -- just American cars, now -- your chances of being killed in the small car are eight times as great as in the full-size car.

MacNEIL: Simply because the small car hasn't got the strength to resist the momentum and weight of the bigger one?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Right. And overall, in all types of crashes, the ratio is two-to-one. You're twice as safe in a large car as compared to a small car.

MacNEIL: Are small cars -- something I read in the report suggested to me that small cars were more likely to be involved in single-car collisions, that is, collisions by themselves, than bigger cars.Is that a fact in the report?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Yes. You know, my sons always have told me, "Dad, you can handle a small car better than the large car," but the facts don't bear that out. These claims frequency figures show that small cars are involved in more accidents, and even when they're adjusted for the age bias, they seem to be involved in more accidents.

MacNEIL: So it wouldn't only be the structural strength of the small car that you would point to, it would also be the handling characteristics or something --

Gen. McDERMOTT: There's something else there --

MacNEIL: -- in the performance?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Yes. That we can't identify.

MacNEIL: Having said that, can you suggest why Japanese-made small cars appear to be even less safe -- I think 34% less safe were your figures -- than the American cars of equivalent size?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Yes, and those figures that Jim showed -- you know, even the number-one car in terms of being dangerous is a Japanese-made car with an American name, the Dodge Challenger. And they are probably more dangerous because they've always had small cars in Japan, and they weren't structurally strong to begin with. They've always been fuel economy conscious. We have down-sized large cars, and perhaps we've kept some of the structural strength there.I'm not an engineer. That's just my hypothesis.

MacNEIL: I see. Can small cars be made safe or safer?

Gen. McDERMOTT: There are a lot of things that can be done. For example, air bags, which the insurance industry has pushed for so long, we believe and many people believe, will save about 9,000 lives a year if they're installed in all cars -- made mandatory. And that's --

MacNEIL: But the Reagan administration has just left it to the industry to do that voluntarily, if it wishes.

Gen. McDERMOTT: Yes. And I would love to see it done voluntarily, but it isn't done voluntarily. There's no place in America today that you can buy a car with an air bag in it. We're killing 1,000 people a week -- 140 every day. If we killed 140 every day in a major air crash, at the end of the week we'd ground all the airplanes.

MacNEIL: So that's nothing to do with the strength of the car or its road handling or anything like that. That is simply restraining the passengers inside it if it gets into a wreck.

Gen. McDERMOTT: It's the integrity of the cockpit, if you will. I'm an old pilot, so I'll express it that way, but the integrity of the cabin. If you get thrown out of the car, your chances are about 10 times as great of getting killed.So if you have an air bag that will keep you in the car and keep you from hitting the dash and the glass and the steering wheel --

MacNEIL: What else, briefly, could be done to make small cars safer, without sacrificing weight and fuel performance?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Making the doors so that they won't fly open in a crash -- again, to keep you from ejecting. Then there is a development in Europe -- a four-laminate wind-shield. There's an extra laminate of plastic on the occupant's side, and that keeps your face from being cut up like it's cut up by 1,000 razor blades. So that would save a lot of lives. Those two things alone would have a great impact on safety.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: The makers and sellers of foreign-made cars are not particularly pleased with the thrust of the insurance industry's study. Here to speak for them is Don Schwentker, representing the Automobile Importers of America, a Washington-based trade group of major auto importing companies. He's an attorney and he's also an auto engineer. First, do you accept the results of General McDermott's study as a valid measure of safety?

DON SCHWENTKER: No, not completely. I think that the study is overly simplistic. It's not possible to just take the total number of accident injury claims and divide by the total number of vehicles and come up with a meaningful statistic. One of the problems that we see in a -- I should say, in the outset, that we have not had much of an opportunity to see this. Last night I saw the results for the first time.We don't think that age of the owner and operator of the vehicle is adequately considered.

LEHRER: Why should that be?How would that affect the results?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, younger drivers are involved in more accidents and more serious accidents. We understand that they attempted in -- we don't know exactly how, but we understand that they attempted to factor in what they call "youthful operators." But we assume this means teenage drivers; and younger drivers, generally, are involved in more accidents than older drivers, and I don't just mean teenagers. A 30-year-old driver is involved in more accidents than a 55-year-old driver. And it partly has to do with how they drive and when they drive and where they drive.

LEHRER: Where else would you find some flaws?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, another concern we have is that we don't think that the mileage that the vehicle is driven has been considered in this survey. We think that -- it appears that they have just taken the total number of cars registered, and they have not considered how many miles these cars are driven. Now, there was a time when a typical two-car family had a large car and a small car and perhaps, given the chance, they would prefer to drive the large car. Now that we've become a little bit more fuel conscious, as we should have been a long time ago, I think it's more likely that the old gas-guzzler sits in the driveway and the more efficient vehicle is used for transportation. So we think the small cars are driven more miles. And it is a proven fact that younger drivers do in fact drive more miles. The Highway Safety Research Institute at the University of Michigan has told us -- told everyone in a published study that when you consider accident-causing factors, the human factor -- namely, the driver -- accounts for more than 70%; the environment --

LEHRER: Whether they're in a little car or a big car or whatever?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: That's right.

LEHRER: Japanese car, American car?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: That's right. That's right. And the environment about 12%, and the car itself, less than 5%.

LEHRER: Well, do you challenge the overall idea that your chances of getting seriously injured or killed are much increased if you're in a smaller car?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, that's pure physics, Jim. And I don't think that anyone with a great deal of sense would want to challenge that. And I'm not challenging that. What we think must be done is, a much better look must be given at some of the other factors, rather than just to take an overly simplistic view.

LEHRER: You heard what General McDermott just said in answer to Robin's question about why Japanese cars came out on his list so poorly compared to American cars. What's your reaction to that one?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, Japanese cars are in fact owned and driven by a younger age group than U.S. domestic small cars are. And if you factor that into it, we think it will make the results greatly different. We think that there's a great deal more involved in an accident than what kind of car you're driving. Whether or not you're drunk or not is far more important. Whether or not you're wearing a seat belt is far more important, and we wish everyone would wear seat belts and we wish no one would drive after they've had too much to drink. All of that is far more important than the kind of car that you drive. The car is a relatively minor point. We don't agree that Japanese cars are structurally less sound. We think that if you look at the data honestly you would find that that's not the case. The Japanese and the import auto industry generally has had a great deal more experience building smaller cars because, overseas, fuel has been expensive and in short supply for many, many years, and Americans have gotten used to having cheap fuel. It was far cheaper than it should have been and now American manufacturers are forced to meet this challenge and build smaller cars. So we're seeing more and more of them.

LEHRER: Mr. Schwentker, finally, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is your feeling that the insurance industry, as represented by General McDermott, has taken a cheap shot against the imports?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're taking a cheap shot, especially to the man who insures my small cars and has for the last 20-some years. I might add --

LEHRER: U.S.A.A., right?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: U.S.A.A., that's right. And I might add that I have not made any injury claims against him, and I've been driving small cars for all those years. But of course I don't drink and I fasten my seat belt each time I ride, and so does everyone who rides in my car.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Further reaction now from the automobile industry. Roger Maugh is director of automobile safety with the Ford Motor Company. He is with us in Detroit at public television station WTVS. Mr. Maugh, do you challenge the results of this report?

ROGER MAUGH: Well, Mr. MacNeil, we applaud very much the insurance industry's effort to increase the public awareness for safety. We think that's an effort that ought to be taken on by all elements of society, and certainly this type of an effort to publicize the importance of safety is to be applauded. But, unfortunately, the crash worthiness ratings, as they're used by General McDermott's study, just doesn't get to the depth of knowledge that you need to have in order to really tell the differences between one vehicle and another in terms of its safety characteristics.

MacNEIL: Do you go as far as Mr. Schwentker did, saying that the car is a relatively minor point -- how the car is made and handled is a relatively minor point in causing personal injuries? That it's how it's driven and who is driving it and when and so on?

Mr. MAUGH: Well, there's no question that the single largest factor in determining whether or not you're going to have an accident is the driver. And the single largest determinant of how badly you're going to be injured is whether or not you're restrained.

MacNEIL: Do you believe that small cars are less safe for people in them than large cars?

Mr. MAUGH: Oh, I don't think there is any question that when you get in an accident the physical forces are such that you have a much better opportunity to protect the occupant in a larger car than you do in a smaller car.

MacNEIL: Do you believe that American-made small cars are actually safer than Japanese cars of comparable size?

Mr. MAUGH: Oh, I don't -- we don't have any basis on which to make any general comparisons between small cars made in one location versus small cars made in another location. I think that that kind of differentiation is just not possible with the data that we have today.

MacNEIL: Do you think this study would, or other things, begin to encourage Detroit to use safety in its advertising as one of the things to attract people to its cars?

Mr. MAUGH: Well, if we had a good measure of crash worthiness, an objective measure, as we do for fuel economy, I don't think there is any question but that manufacturers would use it. It would be an important element in marketing cars; it would help develop interest in safety, much as there has been interest developed in fuel economy. And of course, over the long run, that would benefit our industry. So that, yes, if we had a crash worthiness rating and studies like this were really directly related to the issue of how well a car protects an occupant, certainly we would use the studies and promote them and advertise them. Unfortunately, you have to have information that's not misleading, and there's no question in our minds that when we look at these tables there are comparisons that are made that just show up tremendous differences between cars which we know to be essentially identical. For example --

MacNEIL: Could you spell -- could you give us an example?

Mr. MAUGH: Sure. You had two lists of cars, and I believe the Ford Mustang was on the list of those that were worst and the Mercury Zephyr station wagon, I believe the model was, was on the list that was best. Those two cars are essentially structurally the same automobile in those areas that would affect safety and the protection of the occupant.

MacNEIL: So what does that suggest to you about the report?

Mr. MAUGH: Well, it suggests to me that the big difference between those two cars in terms of how they show up on that particular array of data is the effect of the different types of people driving those cars.

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Eight years ago the federal government gave some money to a group of transportation research firms and told them to see if they could develop a small safe car that could be mass-produced by the mid-1980s. The project has just been completed and here with the results is Jack Fabian, who managed the program for one of the companies involved, the Calspan Corporation of Buffalo, New York. Were you successful, Mr. Fabian?

GARDNER FABIAN: I believe we were.

LEHRER: Tell us about the car. What was your final product?

Mr. FABIAN: Well, our final product was a five-passenger family car which would provide fuel economy in the range required by NHTSA for -- or the government for 1985, and which would provide survival for occupants in the 40-50 mile-per-hour range from straight ahead or the side or from the rear, and, in addition, was appreciably safer for pedestrians who might be struck by it.

LEHRER: All right. Now, the end product that you have, first of all, how does the safety of your -- you call it the RSV, the research -- what is it? The research safety --

Mr. FABIAN: Research safety vehicle.

LEHRER: Research safety -- RSV. How does it compare? How does its safety compare with a comparable size car on the regular market? Like the ones we've been talking about.

Mr. FABIAN: Well, I think the easiest way to state that is that in tests run in Japan, the RSV demonstrated survival of the occupants -- which were in fact dummies, of course -- in the front seat in a 40-mile-per-hour head-on crash. That is, each car was traveling at 40 miles per hour. In addition --

LEHRER: Yeah, but how would that -- a comparable size car, a non-RSV do in a similar test?

Mr. FABIAN: I don't know of any comparable size standard car that has passed a similar test over 35 miles per hour.

LEHRER: All right. Now, what did you do? What is in your RSV that is not in any of these cars we've been talking about that we can go out and buy now?

Mr. FABIAN: Well, we added considerable features to make it safer. We revised the -- we, with the Chrysler Corporation, I should say. The Chrysler Corporation was with us in this contract, and did much of the engineering and design work.We redesigned the front end of the car. We started with a base Simca -- 1307-1308, which is a high-production French car -- and we modified the front end to provide a crash post which we felt would make it safer for the occupants and, in addition, not be overly aggressive to any other vehicles it might impact. On the sides we put door beams in and we keyed the doors with interlocks into the aperture structure so that they would carry loads both longitudinally and laterally into the vehicle. And there were cross members in the roof and the floor of the car to carry the load through into the other side.

LEHRER: I see. Well, look, you're about to lose me here on the details, but the question about -- you heard what General McDermott said, that he thinks cars ought to -- the doors, for instance, keep from flying -- do the doors fly open on an RSV? Did you fix that problem?

Mr. FABIAN: I believe we did, yes.

LEHRER: What about the windshield suggestion that General McDermott mentioned?

Mr. FABIAN: We used the secure-flex windshield which General McDermott referred to, I believe.

LEHRER: All right, the two vital questions. First of all, is it your belief that the RSV could be mass-produced?

Mr. FABIAN: Yes, it is my belief it could be mass-produced. It started as a mass-produced car and the modifications were carefully prepared so that they would be capable of being mass-produced. That is not to say that the engineering was completed for mass-production.

LEHRER: All right. Now, what would be the additional cost to make the RSV as safe as it is?

Mr. FABIAN: The additional cost as calculated by the cost group at the Chrysler Corporation in 1979 was $1,795.

LEHRER: Additional cost.

Mr. FABIAN: Additional cost.

LEHRER: Has anybody been knocking on your door saying, "I want to make an RSV?"

Mr. FABIAN: No, not directly.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Thank you. Back to you, General. Some of our other guests have been beating up on your report here. Back to what Mr. Schwentker said, first of all, that you've neglected to take into consideration -- or inadequately taken into consideration -- the age of the people likely to be driving these smaller cars, and how far they're driving them and where and when.

Gen. McDERMOTT: Okay. We did take out the age bias by comparing people in the same age groups in different size cars. So I believe that age base has been statistically taken care of.

MacNEIL: Let's get Mr. Schwentker's reaction to that.

Gen. McDERMOTT: Okay.

MacNEIL: Does that satisfy you, Mr. Schwentker?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, not completely. From what I have read in the material presented by the General's company, it mentions that the youthful driver problem has been addressed, but the youthful driver is not the only age bias that we're concerned about. We'd really have to know more about it. I'm giving you my comments based on what little time I've had to review this.

MacNEIL: Let me say -- would you tend to make the point that you only compared like with like?

Gen. McDERMOTT: We compared like with like. And the other thing that's interesting --

MacNEIL: Twenty-five-year-olds driving big Oldsmobiles and 25-year-olds driving small Toyotas?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Right. The other interesting fact is, on the average, only 11% of Americans fasten their seat belts, but older drivers, the figure is 9%. Younger drivers, the figure is 18%. So the younger generation is more apt to buckle up. They're a little smarter than we are, perhaps. That's a youthful fact that's important. And the other thing is, in these national surveys that New York Times and Gallup and even GM conducted, young people want air bags, for example. Sixty-three to 65% of the young people want them; only 32% or 33% of the old people want them. That's interesting.

MacNEIL: Yeah. What about Mr. Schwentker's point that young people drive a lot more mileage every year than older people do? Did you compensate for that?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Yes, but young people drive both small cars and big cars and intermediate-size cars.

MacNEIL: What about his final point, that the car itself is a relatively minor factor in whether you are killed or injured in a collision?

Gen. McDERMOTT: Well, the cause of the crash is the nut behind the wheel or the drunk behind the wheel. But whether you survive the crash depends upon the integrity of that cabin you're in -- how safe the car itself is. And the only protection you have from the bad driver or the drunken driver or the speedster is the quality of that car that you're driving -- the safety.

MacNEIL: Mr. Schwentker?

Mr. SCHWENTKER: Well, I didn't say that the car was not important --

MacNEIL: You said it was relatively minor.

Mr. SCHWENTKER: As to whether or not the car is involved in an accident -- we were talking about accident-causation factors.Clearly the car is an important consideration as to whether or not you're killed or severely injured, should a crash occur. But, as we understand the Insurance Institute report, was based on the number of claims per vehicles registered, and that would lump together the extent of the injury and the frequency of accidents.

MacNEIL: Is that right?

Gen. McDERMOTT: It's based on claims frequencies per registered vehicle. That is correct. So the data is the same for all car makes. And the interesting point is -- on the American versus Japanese -- if you take the -- just talk about small cars. You take the 10 best small cars, nine of the 10 are American. If you take the 10 worst, eight of the 10 are Japanese. How do you explain that?

MacNEIL: How do you answer Mr. Maugh's point in Detroit that your [report] exaggerated differences -- or showed apparent tremendous differences, were his words -- between cars, and he mentioned two of them, that are essentially the same car?

Gen. McDERMOTT: But they aren't the essentially the same. I'm glad you brought that up. One is a station wagon and the other is a two-door. Now, you notice in the list --

MacNEIL: The station wagon was in the good list.

Gen. McDERMOTT: In the good list.And on that list of 19, most of those cars are station wagon or four-door cars. On the bad list most of them are two-door cars. There are great structural differences between station wagons and two-door cars.

MacNEIL: Mr. Maugh?

Mr. MAUGH: Well, the biggest difference between the station wagon and the two-door car is largely in the roof structure and the rear-end structure. The front structure, the instrument panels and the doors and the parts of the car that are usually involved in the accident are basically the same. I think you can go to one of the other tables, not one of the ones that was shown, but you can find, for example, the Mercury Zephyr two-door, the Mercury Zephyr four-door and the Mercury Zephyr wagon -- there's a 50% difference in the insurance claims experience between the wagon and the two-door and, yet, here you're not even dealing with the difference between a Mustang and a Zephyr, you're dealing Zephyr to Zephyr.

MacNEIL: How would you explain that?

Mr. MAUGH: Well, I think the difference is largely in the makeup of the drivers. Unfortunately, the insurance industry only knows who is applying for the insurance. They really don't know who was in the car at the time of the accident -- at least, those statistics are -- when they do the adjustment for youthful drivers, it's an adjustment, we believe, based on who has shown up on the ownership of the policy, not who was really behind the wheel when the car had the accident.

MacNEIL: Do you have a reply to that?

Gen. McDERMOTT: No, that isn't correct, you know. We have the drivers of the cars in these statistics and we have the claims -- the bodies injured or killed, the personal injuries claims involved. But, we know.

MacNEIL: And, finally, Mr. Maugh, and very briefly, if you can, is Detroit likely to pick up on the ideas in the RSV, that Mr. Fabian outlined?

Mr. MAUGH: Oh, I think many of the -- many of the ideas that were embodied in the Calspan RSV are being picked up by engineers as the cars are redesigned.Many of the structural techniques and the ideas are certainly the kinds of things you'd like to do in an automobile.

MacNEIL: We have only a second. Are you satisfied they're picking these up?

Mr. FABIAN: I believe they are.

MacNEIL: I'm afraid we have to leave it there. I'm sorry, but we can't get your point. Mr. Maugh, thank you very much for joining us in Detroit, Mr. Schwentker in Washington, General McDermott, Mr. Fabian, here. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.